Everything Happens for a Reason

“Trust me. It does.”

October 16, 2025

There have been certain moments that have stood out during my twenty-seven-year career trudging through that corporate jungle when I questioned why I stubbornly chose to stick with my day job instead of dedicating myself entirely to writing. I’m specifically referring to a time when I worked under a manager who exhibited every symptom of every documented personality disorder known to man.

In 2007, because of this lunatic, I made a hasty escape out of the power plant where I had worked for so many years to apply for and be the successful applicant of a Learning & Support Performance Coordinator within the corporate training department in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. After two very long, very drawn out, very emotionally draining years of consistent constant harassment (at last count 144 incidences)—with upper management and my union taking one giant step away from me—I jumped ship to climb on board with another department a short 84 kilometers away, one way. Which I gladly drove that badly patched highway back and forth, regaining my sanity within each new workday.

This career move would prove to be the best decision I would make as a wannabe writer.

My new position was project-based. I was assigned a job task attached to a deadline. I was expected to write corporate policies, standard operating procedures, and online training courses. Remember all my dreams with all those words that would fill all those books I was destined to write? Well, during my time with the training center, those job assignments would slowly but surely teach me how to place those words strategically in order to make any kind of writer’s sense.

Which ultimately helped me to become a better writer.

Where before, my brain was like a snow globe filled with words that my dreams shook up and mix up. During my four years with the training center, all those projects that I completed on target taught me how to still my brain. This steadied my thoughts, allowing me to pluck the right words and put them in logical order. My time at that training center would teach me the best writing lessons in my career.

Add to that, the air in the training department wasn’t laced with the usual toxic fumes of corporate dysfunction. Sure, there was that one sly fox who made a hobby out of trying to sabotage my projects and vigorously stir my emotional pot—but because of the experience I gained from that lunatic manager, I’d become a master of the corporate sidestep. I ducked, weaved, and successfully deflected that co-worker’s passive-aggressive jealousy grenades like a seasoned pro. It also helped that my then—really decent—manager, a large intimidating man whose girth contradicted his gentle giant nature, stood by me, encouraged me and always nudged me forward. He actually wanted to see me succeed! The exact opposite experience I had with that former maniac boss who consistently held me back.

I think the reason I felt compelled to share this story within my blog series is to remind myself that even though the road that I had envisioned taking to become a published author didn’t go exactly the way I dreamed—it did get me to where I am supposed to be. Surrounded by my loved ones, celebrating one of the many books I am destined to write—no matter how it was tossed out into the literary world—in the home that Gene and I built. 

And, truthfully, what better place is there for me to be?

So, on the day of the release of my debut book, The Deafening Sound of Sorrow, I think I needed to remind this wannabe writer, who is now a published author, that everything happens for a reason.

Wait! What? That’s it? (spoiler alert: My Super Power is final revealed.)